Thursday, August 03, 2017

Richard Rahn, who is on the board of the American Council for Capital
Formation, rightly calls for abolishment
of both the Federal Reserve and the SEC, after considering which of
the two agencies might be doing more to kill innovation. A recent SEC
move against "initial coin offerings" (ICOs) -- a form of IPO by
digital currency companies -- prompts his informative and indignant
column, which ends as follows:

The dollar is now worth
about 1/24 of what it was in 1913, after the creation of the Fed. That
is, the Fed has destroyed about 95 percent of the value of the dollar
-- which meets the definition of grand theft. Fed Chairman Yellen has
been complaining that inflation is not high enough. She wants 2
percent per year or more -- i.e. more theft. Again, the Fed was
supposed to preserve the value of the currency, not steal
more.

Many smart techies are trying to develop new private
digital monies and payment systems to get around the government theft
and tyranny. Ever-increasing regulatory costs for banks force them to
increase fees on things like international money transfers. The result
is that the techies are also developing global money transfer systems
that go around the overregulated banks.

What need to be
abolished are not ICOs, but the SEC and the Fed, which are unnecessary
dead weights on both our economic well-being and liberty. [link
omitted]

Opposing all economic regulation, I balk at the
term "overregulated," but I otherwise find much to like and little to
dislike about the piece. Not only does Rahn properly call
inflation theft, he also notes that those functions of the SEC
that are legitimate are, in fact, redundant.